My Memory of Mountain and Sea
May 17, 2000
I was watching PBS tonight and saw parts of two shows. One about Mt. Ranier and the other about polynesian canoes being rebuilt today and sailing the seas with natives recapturing their heritage.
Both of these shows reminded me of all the things I’ve known and left behind. It was a bittersweet and sorrowful feeling.
It’s hard to imagine I was there sometimes. Like I just don’t think about it, to be able to handle it. I used to live in the mountains and I used to see broad vistas and smell aggressively purified mountain air and see glaciers. I watched seasons move through the mountains. The yellow autumns, the crows in the rainy late fall, deep bright snow, melting spring torrents, flowers and green everywhere, the hot summer sun of high altitude.
I used to travel to new places and see places I’d dreamed of, like Alaska. I was a part of that fresh culture, of just a few people making their way from scratch it seemed like, even though it was also a modern world. Old and new together. The Sea-Tac airport with the totem poles. Flying down into the green fields and sheep of England. Living on the Maine coast with the Yankees, otters and seals. And blueberries.
I saw deep blue seas. I had a big ole sailboat. It groaned over the seas and crashed into the waves with a roar. It could support life. I’ve left the mountains, the exploration, the sailing and the sea all behind.
Memories of crisp blown clean air and briny blue splashing.
Memories of high mountain vistas.
All the life that it all inspired in whoever was around it.
All gone.
Hopefully transformed. Not gone. Not ignored. But how is it to think of it?
